Will 6.2 + tokens stop the bleeding?

[rda]

Now that we have seen the (humongous) losses in subs, a very simple question:

Given what we know about 6.2 (and its feature list is likely more or less already fixed - unless they go out and do something about it like right now), do you think 6.2 + tokens that they already added will stop the bleeding?

[Deleted]

outside raid the game is still boring.

and tokens has nothing to do with anything. perhaps some rich in gold people bought 10 months of subs already but got bored of the game, he will still count as subs for 10 months when he might not even play after 1 month.

[Deleted]

I was tempted to vote for the second option, but voted the third after some thought.

The WoW token will only be effective for 1 million players at the most. The rest will continue to unsub or pay with real money because they lack gold.

[Faldric]

The tokens will stop the bleeding for a short time, at least for the next numbers.

Why? Because people who quit and who have no need for their gold get a token just because "why not?". They lose nothing from it. Many will then remember why they quit in the first place and not continue playing for that long but stick around long enough to be in the next sub numbers. The people who buy those tokens from blizz with real money are those who would not unsubscribe anyway. At the end the next numbers will be the same or even higher just for the token alone. I would guess they delayed the bleeding for about 2 quarters with the token.

Once the people who are unsubscribed most of the time run out of hoarded gold, the trend will continue.

[Marxman]

6.2 will slow the losses, as every major content patch does, but I doubt people will be eager to return to World of Garrisoncraft. If you aren't a raider, WoD is quite simply an objectively bad game.

I'd say subs will continue to drop at a much slower rate until at least the announcement of the next expansion.

[Armourboy]

6.2 will slow the losses, as every major content patch does, but I doubt people will be eager to return to World of Garrisoncraft. If you aren't a raider, WoD is quite simply an objectively bad game.

I'd say subs will continue to drop at a much slower rate until at least the announcement of the next expansion.

Pretty much this. The long term question for me though is did they screw the pooch with this expansion for getting players back that have left. I know we had some that came back because of the hype and were quickly gone. The next expansion better be pretty golden because another one like this ( outside of raiding) is gonna leave them hurting pretty bad.

[Irian]

They're still investing far too much into garrisons and not enough into anything else other than raiding in 6.2. I really don't think the effect will be much different than the BRF release (read: no real effect).

People will briefly rejoin for 6.2, enjoy the new stuff for as long as it lasts but then it will bleed out because there's no sustained enjoyable solo/small group content in WoW. Mythic dungeons are looking like an alt catch-up system, and will entertain for about as long as heroic dungeons did.

I voted for #2 but that being said I don't think it will slow it for long if 6.2 really is the last patch of WoD. I also think a new expansion so soon, if 6.2 truly is the last tier patch of WoD, is going to put off innumerable players because people don't want to be paying for expansions twice as often for another expansion when the first one is collectively seen by a large amount of the playerbase - even by people currently subscribed - as a massive flop.

[rda]

Quite frankly, I don't see anything in 6.2 which would make people go "yeah, that's at least something".

I mean, look at it:

* There is a raid - OK.
* There are ships and ship missions which work exactly like followers - that only works if you aren't bored with garrisons yet (and most, I guess, are).
* There is Tanaan with the traditional apexis dailies, traditional rares, traditional treasures, and traditional pets - alright, one more zone that is just like the rest of Draenor.
* There are mythic instances - but the ilvl makes them more or less irrelevant from the beginning.
* There are timewalker instances and some other holidays - but the rewards make them for alts again and how interesting are these holidays on their own as content?? meh.

I don't see anything at all which would be interesting for long. You'd login, visit the new places and be done with 90% of things in a week or even in a few days.

Meh.

So, perhaps we won't see another quarter with a loss of 3 mil, but other than that...

[Nightcrwler]

They're still investing far too much into garrisons and not enough into anything else other than raiding in 6.2. I really don't think the effect will be much different than the BRF release (read: no real effect).

People will briefly rejoin for 6.2, enjoy the new stuff for as long as it lasts but then it will bleed out because there's no sustained enjoyable solo/small group content in WoW. Mythic dungeons are looking like an alt catch-up system, and will entertain for about as long as heroic dungeons did.

I think at this point they have no choice but too keep on going with Garrisons even though they probably realize garrisons is one of the many short comings in this expac.

The one good thing about the sub losses is that we are pretty much guaranteed of not having garrisons in the next expac, thank goodness for that.

6.2 definitely looks disappointing. I was hoping for something like 5.1 or Isle of Thunder but it seems as if it will be another fucking timeless isle. For me, nothing will really change. I'll only log on to raid.

[tumppu]

There has for a while now been a substantial population of people, who sub to see the new stuff and after playing it for 1-3 or whatever weeks/months let their sub lapse again. 6.2 will probably be just like that, a boost for a month or two and then back down.

[Deleted]

Tokens will not make a noticeable difference imo.
Patch 6.2 can make a difference if it offers more non-raid content than we had in the last months.

[Atrea]

Where is the poll option, "I don't care, because everyone I want to play with still does, so subscriber numbers are meaningless to me"?

[Wyrt]

6.2 is just more of the same crap that made WoD suck in the first place. There will be some hype for the patch so Blizzard will probably launch it near the end of Q2 to get the subscription boost from that. Then subs will go down again as people realize it's just the same shit they had before.

[Cinnamohn]

It'll probably look a little something like this over the course of this quarter:

o
.o
..o
...o
....o
.....o
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.........o......o
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.....|......|............o
April|May|June

When a person unsubscribes, I'd generally assume that they're doing so because they don't enjoy playing, not because $15 is too much. That's not always the case, but I would think so the vast majority of the time. Therefore, I don't see the tokens being something that would dampen the rapid decline all that much. And with the way 6.2 is shaping up, they aren't showing a whole lot of promise in terms of rectifying the current situation, so.. Yeah. I expect to see a new all-time low by the end of this expansion, which unfortunately means we'll be seeing even more money-grubbing methods over the next year.

[Cracked]

6.2 doesn't fix any problems! It has a new raid... and that's about it, for a casual player, its content can be consumed in 1 day.

[Zyky]

outside raid the game is still boring.

and tokens has nothing to do with anything. perhaps some rich in gold people bought 10 months of subs already but got bored of the game, he will still count as subs for 10 months when he might not even play after 1 month.

Only 10? I'm good now until Janurary of 2017.

[pansertjald]

With the price the tokens have in EU, i don`t think they will help that much.

[Deleted]

It'll stop the bleeding for a few months, then it'll continue to bleed again.

[Ryme]

Since the next call is taken from end of June numbers, I don't think they'll do much, I suspect a large amount of people who quit before won't hang around after the first month they got from the token.

[Deleted]

What bleeding? Why do people think losing subs equates to losing profit? Sure, they'd make more money if those subs remained up, but everyone knows that a lot of people re-subbed for the expansion and would not be retained. Blizzard would hardly have been banking on retaining them either in their business plan as there has been a hardcore of players who sub just for the casual content for some years now. But what does a company do if it's losing its main source of revenue? It diversifies; which is exactly what Blizzard have been doing with the store, paid services, level 90 boost and now the WoW token.